OSHA Partnership Demonstrates Safety Focus

CORPUS CHRISTI, TX—Demonstrating its commitment to provide high levels of workplace safety and health at the CHRISTUS Spohn project, McCarthy Building Companies Inc. recently signed a three-year partnership with OSHA. The partnership will allow the collaboration to provide systematic safety management practices to deliver a safe work environment to all the workers at CHRISTUS Spohn.

“Safety is the most important thing we do every day at McCarthy and partnering with OSHA will keep our safety and health management program fully integrated into operations at CHRISTUS Spohn,” said Ben Johannamen, vice president of operations. “We are celebrating the completion of 1 million man-hours worked at the CHRISTUS Spohn project and we want to ensure our team continues to be focused on eliminating any risks on the jobsite.”

The OSHA strategic partnership program directive is an extended, voluntary and cooperative relationship that allows businesses to address potential hazards in a given industry. By sharing resources and expertise, the program helps pinpoint effective ways to reduce employee illness and injury, a process involving increased training, implementation of best practices, and improved health and safety programs. By partnering with McCarthy, OSHA recognizes the company's efforts to eliminate serious risks and achieve elevated levels of worker health and safety.

“Now that the partnership is in effect, the way it works is that we have a written set of standards that we have agreed to implement and follow. OSHA has also set forth requirements that they too will follow as it pertains to the partnership agreement,” Cody Simmons, safety manager for McCarthy Building Companies Inc., tells GlobeSt.com. “As for reporting, we have a quarterly, informal, face-to-face or phone conversation (the type of meeting is at OSHA's discretion) discussing our current project status, any major injuries or incidents that may have occurred, and current industry trends that we should be on the look out for.”

OSHA will conduct an annual site inspection to ensure compliance within agreed-upon standards. McCarthy agrees to allow OSHA to audit its documents and records as requested, in accordance with the partnership agreement guidelines, and will allow OSHA onsite without requiring a warrant, GlobeSt.com learns.

“We will not have an employee housed within OSHA, however our local working relationship with OSHA is outstanding and we have constant communication between us,” Simmons tells GlobeSt.com.

At CHRISTUS Spohn, McCarthy is currently working on multiple projects at two campuses, Shoreline and Memorial, as part of the hospital system's $275 million master facility plan. The project includes the 43,000-square-foot Hector P. Garcia Memorial Family Health Center (completed Dec. 2016) and the new 395,501-square-foot 10-story patient tower at the Shoreline campus, as well as a new central utility plant to serve the new hospital.

McCarthy Building Companies Inc. is the oldest privately held (100% employee owned) national construction company in the country. It has approximately 1,800 salaried employees and offices in Houston, Dallas, St. Louis, Atlanta, Collinsville, IL; Portage, IN; Kansas City, KS; Omaha, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver, San Diego, Newport Beach, CA; San Francisco, San Jose and Sacramento.